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Dud IP address: Logged Posts: 1645
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I had a meeting with a maths tutor yesterday. He went through the syllabus for a course that was meant to be equivalent to a GCSE in maths. It contained no trigonometry, no logs/exponentials, no calculus, no stats (over and above finding an average). The most complex subject it dealt with was fractions - it was at a level that, in my day, would have been aimed at 11 or 12 year olds. I wanted to say to him - "no this can't be right, you have to be mistaken, things can't have got this bad". But he's the expert. Teachers on here or those with recent involvement with GSCEs - have things got so bad, has the bar been lowered so much that exams no longer mean anything but have been replaced by worthless awards that can be gained by anyone cabable of writing their name on a piece of paper? I'm really hoping that I have been misinformed.
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Keri2323 IP address: Logged Posts: 9428
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Im not a teacher, but yes, yes and yes. It's all part of the government dumb down on the average intelligence so nobody thinks anymore and we all agree to New World Order. What a happy soul Iam. |
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| Dud IP address: Logged Posts: 1645
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How the fuck are engineers meant to build bridges if they don't know how many angles iare n a triangle? How the fuck are computer programmers meant to write sophisticated software if they aren't taught logic? How the fuck are we to compete in the modern world if our kids are only educated to the level of sheep dogs?
This depresses me greatly. |
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MoralApe IP address: Logged Posts: Too Many!!!
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no trigonometry
I can really only see this as a good thing. I've never used it in life once, and yet for four hours a week, for an entire term, I had it hammered into my head.
I can't really understand it myself, aren't there complaints that exams are getting too easy?
Could've fooled me of course, I just think its just yet another really fucking nasty way of keeping the young people down. "11 A's! But of course, exams are easier these days!"... |
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| MoralApe IP address: Logged Posts: Too Many!!!
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Forgive me a rephrase.
I've never consciously used it... |
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| Konrad IP address: Logged Posts: 738
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I'm not a teacher either, but my girlfriend's doing some assistant-teacher sort of work with primary kids, and it angers and depresses me to hear the way things are done there. There's a lot of emphasis on things being 'fun' and not 'boring'. Parrot fashion times tables were boring, you know, back in the days when people could f*cking count. Sitting 'on the carpet' time because sitting at a desk too long requires too much self-discipline. ...and ignoring bad behaviour until it 'goes away' when they get bored because they're not getting any attention. I'd give them some f*cking attention - do they still have heavy black-board rubbers? Edited: Konrad - Tue 13 May 2008 (1:19PM) |
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| MoralApe IP address: Logged Posts: Too Many!!!
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They dont even have blackboards mate. |
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| Dud IP address: Logged Posts: 1645
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You have used trig subconsiously - for example when cycling into a cross wind and knowing which direction to steer.
That facile example aside - it matters not so much whether a child is taught trig or predicate logic or calculus but more so taught how to think clearly and precisely. |
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withnail IP address: Logged Posts: 25
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my maths teacher could hit anything or anyone at any distance with one of those things ! saw him in 'shamensbury's' the other day all old looking and wondered how he'd like a small box of fairy ( non-bio, of course) lobbed at his privates ! |
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| ReallyBrown IP address: Logged Posts: 598
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I could write so much. I'm an exam board marker as well as a teacher. In Modern Foreign Languages, the list of 'tolerable mistakes' in exam performances is far longer these days than in the past. My first MFL was O Level French. It trained me to be a mini translator with no requirement to speak the language. GCSE demands almost the complete opposite. Accurate extensive writing in another language is less important. However, pronunciation, accuracy, fluency, independance and content are required in speech. I use my John Shuttleworth keyboard to make my kids learn the names of all the shops in the town, or the animals in a zoo, or the meals on a menu. We improv. We torch song away when I'm hot. It's groovy, multisensory stuff. Camp as a circus, too. However, if I were to make a group of kids chant (as I did): je regarde tu regardes il/elle/on regarde nous regardons vous regardez ils/elles regardent I'd probably be graded as a fail by Ofsted. I would be considered so old hat, so old-fashioned, so irrelevant. So I choose Pracatan and smile. We are all happy this way. Edited: ReallyBrown - Tue 13 May 2008 (1:52PM) |
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| withnail IP address: Logged Posts: 25
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what ol' margheritta |
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| ReallyBrown IP address: Logged Posts: 598
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PS It's easy to be an old style teacher. It's harder to be a Zeitgeist Busta. |
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| Dud IP address: Logged Posts: 1645
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To me the method employed to teach is not as important as the end result - methods tends to come in and out of fashion. If they work then they are good and the converse is true. If the teacher has their own personal ways, skills etc that they can employ then more the better. With French, well, it would appear obvious as to whether someone is learning properly or not - they can communicate better in the language than they could before. Most education, especially in the UK system is "triangular". A student starts off doing a whole range of subjects, for example 8-12 GCSEs, then they specialise in 3 or so at A-level and then one subject at degree (other paradigms and qualifications excepted). The point being that if one does get the proper GSCE grounding in maths, French or whatever then they haven't achieved the pre-requisite standard to do the A'level, unless they dumb down the A'level too - this has a continual knock on effect to diminish the value of UK education. And woe-betide the poor student who wanted to be a mathematician or French translator when they realise they can't do the math or speak the language well enough to embark upon their chosen career. |
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| ReallyBrown IP address: Logged Posts: 598
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To me the method employed to teach is not as important as the end result I think that the method employed to teach hugely affects the end result. I think the method employed to teach IS as important as the end result. Content is all. Diminish the content, lower the end result. Bring in the elitist curriculum here, possibly, for a slot on the couch and a smoothie in cricket whites. I was inspected three times this fortnight teaching Music classes. I'm not a Music graduate or specialist. Playing together in a band - Four kids on entry level core instruments - shows you can't be in a band, or a good individual player, unless you work on the knowledge and put theory into practice. I can't let kids arse around on the trumpet for three months without direction and expect them to put out the William Tell Overture. Off topic - The best management model I ever studied was an analysis of the skills and cooperative/collaborative penchants (loves) required to play in a string quartet. It really was the best piece of leadership / teamwork / cohesion literature I'd ever read. I think of it all the time as we make up songs about shirts, shoes, trousers, socks, skirts, mittens. Edited: ReallyBrown - Tue 13 May 2008 (2:14PM) |
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| Dud IP address: Logged Posts: 1645
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"I think that the method employed to teach hugely affects the end result" Completely agree. The point I was, obviously ineffectually,, making was that the end result is more important than whatever method is currently in favour with the (usually childless) educational psychologists. I'd rather have my kids taught using an out of date, out of fashion method that got results than a new fangled one that didn't. The converse is equally as true - if a new method actually gets better results than an old one then I'm all for embracing it. (My kids can't believe our teachers used to beat us with various object including sticks and slippers) |
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| ReallyBrown IP address: Logged Posts: 598
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obviously ineffectually You made your point really clearly, Dud. It wasn't ineffectual at all! I often lob one in here between tasks at work when I've stopped running for five minutes. I post in tickled despair at times. When I read it back, it often makes little sense. The important thing is that we need well qualified people in everything. The difference between my clientele and me (and my clientele and people older than me) is that there are so many alternatives to studying and making brain effort these days. I'm a fan of NOT studying (because I've done quite a lot), but I know that studying and personal learning are pivotal. We are rammed home with the concept of Lifelong Learners at work. I think people who stop learning are going to have rotten brains. And learning doesn't mean translating Appolinaire's poetry. Learning can be installing a dishwasher. Or (note to self) posting on here in a sage, measured way instead of posting like a goon. Edited: ReallyBrown - Tue 13 May 2008 (7:59PM) |
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| UK82 IP address: Logged Posts: 248
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Its taken you all this time to realise? Things went down hill rapidly when Blair came in. IF Blair/Brown were a car they would be the Nova/Corsa with the thousands spent on the bodykit, burning round town showing off, but not impressing those that know better! Everything was (is) for show, part of his brainwashing of the UK public. Helped and continued by Brown. Worst period for UK politics in real terms since the war. |
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| Dud IP address: Logged Posts: 1645
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Your coments gently ignore the fact that the rot (in maths education) started under the Thatcher years. Both parties should sit in the naughty corner and hang their heads in shame (if that doesn't infrnge their human rights that is) |
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| ReallyBrown IP address: Logged Posts: 598
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If I was on an open-the-box show and was asked What do you think started the rot in education since you've been a teacher? I'd say The National Curriculum. I need acres to quantify that but have no time or desire now. The National Curriculum came in under Mrs Thatcher, and Kenneth Baker. It was first mentioned in about the third year I started teaching. People started to leave the profession in large numbers. They could see the writing on the wall. That was the start of it in recent history for me. |
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| Icon IP address: Logged Posts: 1651
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As an aside from the general direction of the thread but to pick up on an example that Dud used. I'm a pretty successful engineer by most folks reckonings but I am severly dyscalculic. in real terms this means that numbers and their respective interactions are relatively meaningless to me. However, engineering is what I do and I do it well. Maths, schmaths. If you want to succeed you can do it. |
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